Jon Rahm revealed the state of his health in plain sight on Tuesday when he walked into his press conference at Pinehurst No. 2 for the U.S. Open wearing one shoe and one sandal.
Rahm, who withdrew from LIV Golf Houston because of a foot injury, said he’s fighting the remnants of an infection between two toes. Healing while being active is difficult.
“Oh, it’s a concern. It’s doing better,” Rahm said. “It’s doing better. But definitely still in pain.”
Rahm said the pain last Saturday was significant enough that he received a numbing injection. When asked if he expected to be able to compete in the third major of the season this week, Rahm didn’t blink.
“Anytime I tee it up, I feel like I have a good chance,” Rahm said.
The 2021 U.S. Open champion, Rahm said he could’ve completed the round last week in Houston but wanted to be aware of the long view — including the Open this week and the Open Championship next month.
“Could I have dragged myself out there and posted some kind of a score? Yeah,” Rahm said. “But it was getting to a point where I wasn’t making the swings I wanted to make, and I could have hurt other parts of my swing just because of the pain. As to right now this week, I don’t know.”
Rahm didn’t test his foot on the course this week and will do minimal pre-tournament work to avoid taxing an injury he described as an odd one.
“We’ve been trying to figure it out because I think that the closest term would be a lesion on the skin. If I were to show you, it’s a little low in between my pinky toe and the next toe.”
No longer fighting the infection, Rahm said he’s not out of the woods entirely and pain could be a factor.
“There’s still swelling and there’s still pain,” Rahm said. “There’s a reason I walked out here in a shoe and a flip-flop, trying to keep the area dry and trying to get that to heal as soon as possible.”
Rahm’s streak of 19 consecutive cuts made in majors was snapped at the PGA Championship, prompting what he feels is a false narrative on the state of his game.
“I’ve been top 10 and had a chance to win in most of the tournaments I’ve played, and then unfortunately Augusta and PGA wasn’t my best showings. But yeah, I’m happy,” Rahm said. “I mean, it’s been a wonderful career so far. And yeah, it hasn’t been the best first half of the year, but there’s been many times where I haven’t had a great start, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a great finish.”
–Field Level Media